History Lessons

When mom asked if we could take a road trip when they were going to be here visiting, I had a couple ideas come to mind. Since I haven't really taken a road trip outside of Manhattan other than up to Cooperstown, it wasn't hard to find destinations. A fishing village in New England? Some hiking that would overlook the Hudson River valley? Long Island? Scenic lakes upstate? Washington DC? Through the process of elimination and in talking to my parents, we came up with Gettysburg and Philadelphia, PA.

Those of you that know me pretty well know that I've always been a history buff, and as a child I was particularly interested in the Civil War. Then I went through a Central and Eastern Europe phase after visiting Hungary, and recently (for some reason), I've been learning more about South American history. But the peculiar thing is that other than by reading books, I have little personal experience with early American history, other than a trip to Charleston and to DC as a 13 year-old. This trip would help me catch up and also teach Erika somethings about the United States that she was interested in.

So with Google Maps (and, thankfully, a rented GPS unit named "Miss Garmin") in hand, we took off for Pennsylvania at around 6:00am on Monday morning. The plan was simple: go to the Visitor Center and figure out what there was to do when we got there. I had heard that Gettysburg had a pretty well structured tourist route and dad confirmed it at 5:30 in the morning while we were all getting ready. We made it through Manhattan without any issues and about four hours later, we arrived in scenic Gettysburg.

At the visiter center, we found out we could take a personal tour of the battlefields with certified tour guides for the reasonable price of $50 and with tickets to the museum and the amazing and massive "Cyclorama" it came out to about $25 a person, which is not bad for a day's experience. The tour guide took the wheel of our rental car and four about three hours, we saw all the major battlefields and learned all about the three-day battle that turned the course of the Civil War. It may not sound that interesting, but I think we all agreed that it was a thrilling experience and ignited my fire to read more about the history that I loved reading about as a child.

After spending the day in Gettysburg, we hit the road again and pointed Miss Garmin in the direction of our Hotwire-acquired hotel in downtown Philadelphia. We got in pretty late and wandered around trying to find some food (this city was definitely not one that never sleeps!) and eventually came across a sports-bar that served up some pretty decent food and home-brews. We had planned on taking advantage of Restaurant Week and eating high-class for low prices, but everything was closed by 10:00pm - pretty weak in my book! But we were beat anyway and had a busy Tuesday planned, so getting to bed by midnight was definitely top of the list!

On Tuesday morning, we had some Belgian waffles and then decided that we should probably figure out what there was to do in Philadelphia, since we had no idea. We found the Tourist Center on a map and soon found out that all of the tourist stuff in town was run by the National Parks Service and was, therefore, free!! We got tours of Independence Hall, pictures with the Liberty Bell, went to Benjamin Franklin's printing press, saw the Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier, learned about some of the original documents signed in the 1700s, and took a bus tour around town for $2. And, obviously, we ate an amazing Philly Cheesesteak to make sure that our heart's cholesterol levels were higher than they were before we went on our trip.

Philadelphia as a city is, as a matter of fact, not that bad. It's definitely a city with black or white, and no shades in between. And I'm not just talking about race! It has beautiful architecture all over town, but take the wrong exit and you're in the ghetto of all ghettos. But even the ghettos look like they just need some fixin' up and you've got an amazing Victorian house on your hands. The people in Philly were generally nice and it had a big city feel without the attitude and rush that people in New York have. Nice restaurants were planted all over town and prices were pretty reasonable.

Overall, it's hard to describe the trip, but I did learn more about American History than I have since probably High School (which isn't saying much!) and I highly recommend both places as destinations for history buffs. And I further confirmed that my parents are probably the best travel companions I could ask for!

J. Riley, my library queue has grown significantly after this trip!